“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style”. - Maya Angelou

As a parent, my ultimate goal is to raise well adjusted, balanced, resilient adults who can negotiate the hurdles in this world and manage the challenges that life presents them with. That is a mouthful. When you break that goal down, it requires a lot of skills, sweat and tears, laughter, failure, good and bad times, heartaches, losses, successes, disillusionment, a variety of relationships, bruises, cuts and maybe even broken bones, disappointments, encouragement, and just about every other word known to describe our toil in this life.In our current society, our focus tends to be, rather, to raise successful children. In the process we tend to prod, coddle, manage, stage, schedule, label our children. Whatever it takes to get them on the podium. Also hard work, but the outcome is slightly different. We may now end up with a very anxious, exhausted, dis-regulated child with a gold medal around their neck. In this article I want to raise some awareness about how to instill the development of self-regulation in our children as a foundation to all the other skills and successes that we hope they will acquire. Successful students usually exhibit the following traits as outlined in Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Voh’s Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications (2011). It describes Self Regulation as the ability to:

“Attain, maintain, and change one’s level of energy to match the demands of a task;

Monitor, evaluate, and modify one’s emotions;

Sustain and shift one’s attention when necessary and ignore distractions;

Understand both the meaning of a variety of social interactions and how to engage in them in a sustained way;

To empathise and act accordingly”

In essence, they need to be able to:

Identify when they are calm, alert and able to learn and participate in daily activities

Identify when they are stressed and what is causing them to feel that way

Develop a desire to deal with the stressors and ways to deal with it

Recover from feeling stressed, regulating back to feeling calm and alert again

That is what I try to teach parents and children in my practice as an occupational therapist.I will now share some of the strategies that I commonly recommend.

Encourage self-regulation. Your aim is not to have children who are compliant and and obey all the rules, but to have children who are optimally regulated, so they can learn, play, participate in family activities, learn to do routine tasks independently, transition from one activity or place to the next. Some children may need to fidget, move, rock, or have some other strategies in place, in order to maintain this state of regulation. Allow regulation strategies throughout the day in order to maintain the right level of arousal or regulation

Make your self-regulation techniques obvious to your children. Use consistent language that will help them understand and internalise the concept of self-regulation. Establish continuity at school by sharing the strategies that you use at home, with teachers.

An example of such a program is the Alert Program or How Does Your Engine Run program by Mary Sue Williams and Sherry Schellenberger. The program teaches children to recognise how their internal engines are running in terms of engine speed. When your engine is running too high, you need a calming or down-regulating activity. When your engine is running too low, you need activities that will help you to up-regulate. A visual continuum can be used to help children identify how their engines are running at different times of the day and pick strategies to get it back to the “Just Right” zone.

In order to learn, play, have a meal together, go shopping with mum, settle to sleep, share toys with siblings or friends, cope with noisy environments, struggle through difficult tasks, whatever skills their day demands, children need to be calm and alert.

Regulating activities (can be used for calming and arousing)

Help children to identify what it feels like to be calm, alert and ready to learn – many children do not know what this feels like

Listening to soft music – music with 60 beats per minute and classical music

Listening to white noise such as the hum of a fan or vibrating machine

Deep breathing - this is a hard concept to explain to young children and I usually use blow toys and balloons to teach them to do deep breathing

Humming, chanting or singing

Wrapping them tightly in a blanket or sleeping bag

Snuggling up in, or laying under a bean bag chair

Looking at a lava lamp or calming jar (fill a jar with water and sparkles; shake it and then watch the sparkles settle)

Using head phones to listen to music or to cancel out noise

Tight fitting clothing such as a sensory vest or lycra clothing

Heavy Work Activities

Opportunities to move

Send child on a chore/delivery to the office or to distribute supplies in the classroom

Fidget toys that are not distracting: an elastic band around the wrist; worry beads in pocket or around neck; pencil topper or chewable toy; stress ball; blue tac; balloons filled with sand, flour, rice, beans

Weighted toys on shoulder/lap.

Exercise tubing around the legs of the chair at the dinner table, so the child can kick their legs against it

Watch this space for my next article on Heavy Work Activities

References:

Calm, Alert and Learning by Stuart Shanker

Building Sensory Friendly Classrooms by Rebecca Moyes

Arnie and His School Tools by Jennifer Veenendall

How Does Your Engine Run by Mary Sue Williams and Sherry Schellenberger

By Carin Clegg, Paediatric DietitianAs a dietitian I am excited by Plastic Free July.Eating a diet without having any form of plastic packaging can be a challenge but it can definitely be a healthier one which means our food supply will be more sustainable for future generations.Most of us have already swapped our single use shopping bags, coffee cups and drink bottles for reusable ones and are not forgetting them so often now which is fantastic. I believe the next step after this is to avoid plastic packaged fruit and vegetables. It has been quite a while since I have bought produce in a net, plastic wrapped and even used a plastic bag. I simply refuse, go without and buy something else instead.The most environmentally friendly bags are cloth bags made from pre-loved material such as sheets or clothes as this prevents these items going to land fill and avoids the manufacture of more new stuff and the carbon footprint associated.Before I built up my supply of cloth bags I reused the standard plastic ones so at least they got a few more uses before they broke.I find that the reusable plastic net bags sold now are not made to last as one of my plastic net bags is starting to break after only 1 year.Another reason I like to use cloth bags is because it makes my shopping trip bright and colourful, almost fun.Some of the fabrics I use bring back fond memories and it helps me put more care in about what I buy and be mindful during the shopping experience.I love hand selecting my fruit and vegetables, even getting the ones people are less likely to buy, cracked carrots, scrapped zucchinis and funny shaped produce so there is even less wastage. I have always grown up eating plenty of fruit and vegetables and I know that is because we always had so many around all the time.Using unique bags can also help get kids involved in the shopping process especially if they have their own set.It keeps their busy fingers out of trouble and makes them feel they part of meal times.With their curiosity it is great for kids to explore and learn about fruit and vegetables- learning when they are ripe, how to care for them- do you put it in the fruit bowl or fridge or is it time for the freezer? Feeling the texture, weight, firmness and aroma at different ripening stages is important learn to eat a wide range of fruit and vegetables as they grow. Fruit and vegetables are packed full of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and fibre and are powerfully protective against chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. They help keep our bowel motions soft and regular, unlock and give us energy, support our immune system, brain function and good mental health.Out of the essential food groups, fruit and vegetables have the most variety in colours, textures, sizes, shapes and tastes and all these qualities change if they are cooked in different ways and change throughout the chewing and eating process. With so much to learn to enjoy, continuing to teach our kids to eat fruit and vegetables as they grow will set them up with healthy habits for life.I recommend having at least 2 sets of re-usable shopping bags in the household or car so that they are not forgotten. Sticky notes can also be helpful placed in the ideal location to help you remember and get into the habit of taking your bags.If you are wanting to continue to reduce your single use plastic you can also use cloth bread bags and buy your bread from the bakery.Linen is the best fabric to use but if you just have cotton simply place your bread, cloth and all, in a bread box or container to avoid it drying out. Even if you do forget your bread bag you can also take back your bread tags and twist ties to the bakery for reuse and use the bread bag as your bin liner or place in the Redcycle bins.Then if you are super keen to keep up your plastic free goal, taking jars and containers to the whole food shop, butcher, deli, fish shop and take-aways is the next step.Trashless take-away is a great website to find a store near you that promotes taking your own container. To get more involved in your community you can join Boomerang Bags to help make reusable cloth shopping bags for your community. No sewing experience is needed as there are plenty of non-sewing jobs and people are always willing to show you how it is done.Over the next few months to years you will notice a huge change in the amount of landfill waste in your household bin, find your family’s eating to be more fresh and wholesome and I bet you will feel very proud indeed! ​

Author

Leanie is an Occupational Therapist with the multi-disciplinary team at KidsPoint in Mingara. She works with children of all ages and their families to help them live life passionately and compassionately, with laughter, applying their own style and values